Grocery Outlet Ethical Bargains

The more I learn about the environmental impacts of various foods, the more I want to switch from regular cheese to vegan cheese. Cheese has surprisingly large carbon and land footprints – among the largest in the food word (except for beef and lamb). Also, as someone who became vegetarian in large part to avoid animal suffering, I want to avoid contributing to the ethical issues with dairy. At the same time, I acknowledge that regular cheese can be delicious and that many of the commonly available vegan alternatives are often not that great, to be honest. That is, unless you know how to choose a good one and, even more important, how to use it.

Choosing a good vegan cheese

A few categories of vegan cheese have a higher success rate, in terms of replacing their dairy-based equivalents. Soft cheese is one variety where a few vegan products are as good as, or even better than milk-based versions. A few goodies that I’ve purchased at the Grocery Outlet and reviewed here include Treeline, Boursin, and Nuts for Cheese. Feta is another variety that, even in the early days of vegan cheese, has had some decent plant-based offerings – Violife, for example. 

When I come across a plant-based cheese that’s surprisingly good, such as Daiya jalapeno Havarti-style cheese, it usually contains at least one of the following elements:

1. Ingredients beyond starch and oil that help create a better texture.
2. Ingredients that add flavor! Heat, acidity, sweetness, umami, etc.
3. Fermentation (e.g., by lactic acid bacteria) and/or ripening (e.g., by a surface mold).

But there’s another element that’s also very important – how you eat it.

In the example of Violife’s vegan feta cheese, I never eat it on its own – it’s always in a Greek salad. In this context, I find the vegan feta to be as good as regular dairy-based feta. In fact I’ve made matching Greek salads (vegan/dairy) on more than one occasion and found that people found them to be about equally good.  

The soft cheeses named above are actually fine served on toast or crackers with no other accompaniment. But they are the exception – for the majority of vegan cheeses, how you serve it matters a lot.

The best ways to eat vegan cheese

Long story short – you generally need to eat vegan cheese with other items for them to work. I’m going to take the example here of pepper jack slices from Miyoko’s Creamery. As you can see from the ingredients below, this cheese does contain the three elements listed above – jalapeño, nutritional yeast and yeast extract to add heat and umami, as well as something fermented (cultured oat milk).

Even still – I wouldn’t be too tempted to eat this cheese straight-up with no accompaniments. But don’t stress – it doesn’t take a lot to bring vegan cheese up to par with regular cheese. Here’s a very simple example – making a vegan grilled cheese using Miyoko’s butter and pepper jack.

A side-note on vegan butter – a few of them (e.g., Miyoko’s and Naturli’) are as good as most regular dairy butters, even straight-up on toast.

Vegan grilled cheese

For this grilled cheese, I used sourdough bread that was part of a surprise bag of goodies from a local bakery via the Too Good To Go app. I happened to have some fresh basil on hand – something that’s always good to have around – and heirloom tomatoes. That’s it! Butter the outside of two slices of bread with Miyoko’s butter and then layer tomato slices (season with salt and pepper), basil leaves, and a slice of Miyoko’s pepper jack cheese in between them. Sauté in a hot pan, pressing down a little with a spatula to make sure it gets hot enough to melt the cheese and flipping it over after a couple of minutes.

In the absence of basil and tomatoes, I’ve found that some refrigerator staples do a good job – particularly olives, capers, or sundried tomatoes, combined with any kind of tapenade or relish that you have on hand. The important thing to know is that you usually have to add something, preferably something fresh, to bring vegan cheese to life.

Since I used Miyoko’s products for this grilled cheese, I’ll update my ethical rating for Miyoko’s butter and cheese. First, the ingredients:

Miyoko’s ingredients

As you can see from the ingredients listed below, Miyoko’s products are made from organic ingredients and are palm oil free. Most of the fat is from organic coconut oil (there’s some organic sunflower oil in the butter, too) so it’s relatively good fat, in my opinion. There’s not much protein in either product, so bear that in mind when you’re constructing a sandwich or snack. You can try it with veggie bacon (and avocado) to add protein (and flavor). 

Miyoko’s Oat Milk Pepper Jack Slices – Ingredients:

Organic Cultured Oat Milk (Water, Organic Oat Flour, Cultures), Organic Coconut Oil, Organic Corn Starch, Water, Organic Jalapeno Peppers, Organic Potato Starch, Organic Tapioca Starch, Sea Salt, Natural Flavor, Nutritional Yeast, Organic Yeast Extract.

Miyoko’s Butter – Ingredients:

Organic Coconut Oil, Organic Cultured Cashew Milk (Filtered Water, Organic Cashews, Cultures), Filtered Water, Organic Sunflower Oil, Organic Sunflower Lecithin, Sea Salt, Natural Flavors. Contains: Cashews.

Ethical rating for Miyoko’s vegan butter and cheese

Here’s an updated ethical rating for Miyoko’s butter and cheese, which I’m rating 5/5 Green Stars for social and environmental impact.

• All Miyoko’s Creamery products are vegan. Adopting a plant-based diet is the top thing you can do to mitigate climate change, deforestation, animal cruelty, and food scarcity.
• Made from organic ingredients.
• All products are free of palm oil.
• Miyoko’s Creamery has been a leader in the field of responsible vegan dairy products. Miyoko even went to court (against the California Department of Food and Agriculture!) to defend the use of the terms “cruelty-free” and “butter” on their vegan products.
• Founder, Miyoko Schinner was removed from the company in 2023, in a move that seemed contentious but now appears to have been resolved. Miyoko continues to run a sanctuary for rescued farm animals.
• Processing of organic cashews in Vietnam is performed safely, and workers receive decent pay and benefits (see previous post on Miyoko’s butter). The current website still supports this policy.
• A certified B-Corporation, with an impact score that increased in 2023.

Summary scores (out of 5) for Miyoko’s butter and cheese:

• 4.5 gold stars for quality and value, on average (5/5 for the butter and 4/5 for the cheese)
• 5 green stars for social and environmental impact

If you have a different opinion, please share your rating!

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